 undated photograph of Watts Island Light (USCG) | |
 | |
| Location | South of Watts Island in the lower Chesapeake Bay |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 37°46′55″N75°53′38″W / 37.782°N 75.894°W (approximate) |
| Tower | |
| Construction | stone |
| Automated | 1923 |
| Height | 48 feet (15 m) |
| Shape | conical tower |
| Light | |
| First lit | 1833 |
| Deactivated | 1944 |
The Watts Island Light was a historic lighthouse located near Watts Island in the Chesapeake Bay. It was the only lighthouse built by John Donahoo outside of Maryland.
The island on which this light stood was originally called Little Watts Island, though by 1867 the light was referred to as if it were on the much larger Watts Island proper a short ways north. It was constructed in 1833 by John Donahoo and is the only one of his thirteen lights outside of Maryland.
The island was plagued with erosion, and by 1923 four of the original 7 acres (2.8 ha) had disappeared. In that year the light was automated and the entire island of Little Watts, including the keeper's house, was sold to a Baltimore insurance executive, save a 30-foot (9.1 m) diameter plot centered on the tower. After the light was automated, Charles Hardenberg, a Princeton-educated lawyer from a respected Jersey City, New Jersey family moved into the abandoned keeper's house after his brother, a physician, bought Little Watts. Hardenberg had moved to Watts Island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay in 1910 on a bet he couldn’t stay there alone for ten years, but lived as a hermit on the islands until his death nearly 30 years later in 1937. [1]
In 1944 a winter storm demolished both the house and the tower, and now even the island itself is gone. The spot is now charted as "Watts Island Rocks" and is marked only with a lighted buoy.
The Thomas Point Shoal Light, also known as Thomas Point Shoal Light Station, is a historic lighthouse in the Chesapeake Bay on the east coast of the United States, and the most recognized lighthouse in Maryland. It is the only screw-pile lighthouse in the bay which stands at its original site. The current structure is a 1½ story hexagonal wooden cottage, equipped with a foghorn as well as the light.
East Brother Island Lighthouse is a lighthouse located on East Brother Island in San Rafael Bay, near the tip of Point San Pablo in Richmond, California. It marks the entrance to San Pablo Bay from San Francisco Bay.
John Donahoo (1786–1858) was a lighthouse builder active in Maryland for much of the first half of the nineteenth century.
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The Clay Island Light was a historic lighthouse located on Clay Island at the mouth of the Nanticoke River on the Chesapeake Bay. Constructed in 1832, it continued to serve the area until 1892, when it was replaced by the Sharkfin Shoal Light. Two years later, the building collapsed, and nothing remains of it.
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Hooper Strait Light is one of four surviving Chesapeake Bay screw-pile lighthouses in the U.S. state of Maryland. Originally located in Hooper Strait, between Hooper and Bloodsworth Islands in Dorchester County and at the entrance to Tangier Sound, it is now an exhibit at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland.
Fort Carroll Light is a derelict lighthouse consisting of a short wooden tower on the walls of its namesake fortifications in the Patapsco River.
The North Point Range Lights were some of the earliest lights in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay. Intended to guide ships headed for Baltimore harbor into the Patapsco River, they were superseded by channel construction in the 1870s and 1980s, and were replaced by the Craighill Channel Upper Range front and rear lights.
New Point Comfort Light is a lighthouse in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay, United States, off the tip of the Middle Peninsula. Finished in 1804, it is the third-oldest surviving light in the bay, and the tenth-oldest in the United States.
| Authority control databases: Geographic |
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